Thursday, January 27, 2005

The National Anthem Controversy

Better than the entire world, is our Hindustan;we are its nightingales, and it is our garden abodeThough in foreign lands we may reside, with our homeland our hearts abide,Regard us also to be there, where exist our heartsThat mountain most high, neighbor to the skies;it is our sentinel; it is our protectorIn the lap of whose, play thousands of rivers;gardens they sustain; the envy-of-the-heavens of oursO waters of the Ganga mighty, do you recall the daywhen on your banks, did land the caravan of oursReligion does not teach us to bear ill-will among usWe are Indians; India is our homeland.While Greece, Egypt, Rome have all been wiped outtill now yet remains, this civilization of oursSomething there is that keeps us,our entity from being erodedFor ages has been our enemy, the way of the world.- Saare jehan se aachaa Hindustan humaara.

Some punk with obviously nothing better to do, has petitioned the supreme court to remove the word Sindh from the national anthem because the province of Sindh is no longer part of India and went fully to Pakistan during partition.
While im not sure exactly this will achieve (except for some unwarranted publicity), i think this person is forgetting our civilisation began on the banks of the Indus in Sindh. It is we alone who are the claimants to that heritage. For the Pakistani converts, their falsified history begins and ends with Islam. For Indians and for the millions of Hindu Sindhi refugees who had to flee from their homeland in 1947, the land of Sindh has a special place in our history.

This controversy though does hightlight one of the problems with our national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" that was chosen instead of the far more popular freedom struggle songs of "Vande Mataram" and"Sare Jahan Se Achcha Hindustan Hamara" which should have been the natural choices. So if we are going to tinker with the national anthem, we might as well get rid of it altogether while were at it, alas the latter two compositions also come with their own historical baggage. One being written by Iqbal who off course latter became the ideological inspiration for the creation of Pakistan and the other "Vande Mataram" opposed by some sections of muslims, therefore needing to be appeased once again by pseudo-secularists.

29 Comments:

I dont know why the above two questions came up but I will try to answer them as I know...During periods of drought in earlier days(centuries ago maybe?) our wise and learned elders did not want us to eat everything in sight,including cows, so they made them sacred and did not let people eat them...to ensure the existence of cattle and help reestablish the diary industry when things got better...this is one version I read somewhere.Areas around pakistan, or where they had a mojority of muslims on the other hand,and some other ancient time ofcourse, experienced a severe epidemic of trichinosis(an intestinal pathogen like the tapeworm) spread by eating infected pigs.So the muslim elders bannded eating pigs for health reasons and probably got rid of the epdiemic. This may have resulted in religious/filty feelings associated with pork for muslims. Both the above explanations have satisfied my curiosity,dont know if u agree with them.Thanks

I have some thoughts about the whole national anthem thing I must share with you,may be u can do some research on it. My mom has a degree in education,history,etc. and told me something she read about,i.e.,when Vandemataram is the main song which got us independence, how come it wasnt made the national anthem? I would think it would have been the natural choice.I was told that Tagore wrote Jana gana mana sometime after the independence struggle or just after,and bcos he was a close friend of Nehru, it was made the national anthem...ofcourse he probably wrote it for the purpose of being the national anthem,dont know but I am not happy that we totally ignored Vandemataram and many of us dont even know who wrote it, leave alone learning the song.Does anyone know anything about this issue?

indus civilization wasn't hindu. the people of pakistan weren't hindu. pakistan always had different face from india. we influenced india, not the other way around. your lanugage is a variant of urdu but you name it hindhi. urdu was dominant in india during the mughals. you learned our language. india was created and ruled by rulers who came from the lands of pakistan/afghanistan. sher khan, to the mughals. we only share history because we ruled you for 700 years. think of that the next time you look at the taj mahal.

Imran, I thought not to comment but then I thought to enlighten your knowledge of History. You (Pakistan)never ruled India for 700 years. Pakistan was created in 1947 (though very unfortunate for all of us at both the sides). India was not created by the people who came from the land of Pakistan/Afghanistan. India was India from before Pakistan was created. all the states and cities of present Pakistan were a part of India. Mughals were not from the west, rather they came from lower part of china. Founder of Mughal dynasty was Chenghiz Khan, who was a mongolian and so the name Mughal. Mughals came to make India their homes and they have given India so many things, they really made it India their home. We feel proud of Taj Mahal as it was created by an Indian ruler. The people from Afghanistan and west came looted India (of which present Pakistan was a part) and went back, they never ruled - for example Mohmmed of Ghazni, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Nadir Shah to name a few. I think the history you read has been tampered and re-written for the vested interest of your country. Regarding Hindi Language, you are again misinformed. It came from Sanskrit (ancient Indian language). majority of all Indian Languages decends from Sanskrit. But Urdu is not an original language. It is a mixture of Persian and Hindi. The proof is that Urdu does not have its own script. It uses Arabic script and speaks a mixture of Hindi and Persian. This find its roots in the writings of Poet Abul Fazal during the time of Akbar the great. Therefore do not boast on false notion that Hindi is variant of Urdu. Rather Urdu is a variant of Hindi with Persian influence. I feel pity on you for your false pride. Next time correct your History background and then write in the blogs.

hindus belive in so many gods....so what??but we do belive dat all gods r equal n welcome evryone wid open arms....unlike other religions hinduism is not a religion ,it is an 'ism'...a way of life.......it teaches da way 1 is supposed to live their life...it dosent ask a person to follow any god or religion ...it just says to pray for ur satisfaction...n peace of mind...it dosent place any restrictions on any person...everyone is welcome to do whatever they wish to do until they dont cause problem to others n they dont do adharma n follow dharma....

hi everyone..the conversation has been very interesting..i just waant to add that be it a pakistani or an indian, we all share common roots and i feel we both do not want any kind of hatred amongst each other.. we are normal good human beings at both the ends...love you all both indian and pakis..ihope the enmity bw us ends once and fr all..

Pseudo-Secularist ..?? why ..?? If i am saying that i'll not bow before anybody except the almighty because my religion doesn't allow this .. so i am a Pseudo-Secularist..?? can you CLARIFY the term Secularist.. secularist doesn't mean to follow every religion BUT TO RESPECT EVERY RELIGION ,caste,community etc....

Iam an Indian. Muslim. And I am proud of my both identities. Imran from Pakistan is highly misguided by their rulers is clearly evident from his version of history. No doubt that Pakistanis were Hindus once as my ancestors were. I am not ashamed of that. Why should I?